STREAM OF THOUGHTS - Part IX


What is adoration?
What is the base for divine love?
How to have eternal bliss?

This universe with all its objects - animate and inanimate, is the creation of God. It is just like the creation or production of a portrait by an artist. It is said that 'God created man in His own image'. Obviously, God must have wanted that human beings should love one another. Whether the great spiritual masters belonged to the Golden Age, Silver, Bronze or Iron Age, whether we refer to Lord Rama, Lord Krishna, Hazrat Mohammad, Lord Jesus Christ, from Guru Nanak Dev ji Maharaj to Guru Gobind Singh ji Maharaj, who lived in this world, or we take the saints like Sant Tukaram, Sant Eknath or the large number of other saints who lived in the various parts of this vast country, or we mention Sri Tanna Ji and Sri Manna Ji from Andhra Pradesh, Sri Panchsakha, a renowned saint of Orissa whose Vani (literature) is read with lot of faith, when we go through what has been written by all these divine masters, we listen to it, we find the same feeling expressed by them all. They said we must love this God, love its creation, the human beings, welcome them and not condemn them.

When we want to please a mother, win her heart or make a place for ourselves in her mind, we are required to love her child. But in case we hurt the child and then go to the mother and tell her that she is merciful, she is very kind, her face is radiant with a sublime glow, we may use any number of words in her praise, convey them to her, we must give up the hope, leave the thought that the mother is going to be pleased. She will say, "There you bruise my child, you kick my son and here you praise me, flatter me." She can never be happy with such a person. On the other hand if that person picks up the child and embraces him, loves him, uses sweet words while the mother is watching from a distance, he will win the heart of the mother even if he does not go to her, does not use all those words of praise for her. Similarly, if we want to please God, we will have to love all.

We perform the various acts of purification. We recite the divine name. We worship God. We sit in penance, apply sweet scented substances. We give alms. We have 'holy' dip. We show charity and so on. Somebody may ask us as to why do we do all this. The answer is: we want to please God. Will God be pleased with all these things? No. You will not win the pleasure of God unless you love the men of God. Just as the mother is not pleased with the man who kicks her child, God is also not happy with the man who discriminates against fellow human beings. God just cannot be pleased to find man behaving in ignorance, not realising that all human beings are the creation of God and the invisible form of God (the soul) is there in each and every heart. There is no place for discrimination in the divine law. Discrimination, the sense of high and low is not a principle of divine adoration. Devotion rests on the foundation of love for God from the core of one's heart.

Where does the feeling of love come from? Love blossoms only in the life of a person who integrates himself with this Almighty Nirankar. We cannot hope to get the coolness of love from the life of a person who is not united with God, his behaviour towards us is always harsh.

A person who is deprived of the divine name or God-knowledge, who does not possess the nectar of love, cannot provide coolness or happiness to us. In order to acquire the feeling of love, it is essential to establish union with the source of this divine quality i.e. God. Every human being must get united with God. Only them will sprout the divine love in his life.

Saints are not fascinated by Maya. They do not love the worldly wealth. They are in love with God. Love requires ego to be given up, the very mind to be surrendered. Man does not achieve anything so long as he has ego, he is proud. When this "I" is converted into 'You', one begins to see God all around:


TUN TUN KARTA TUN BHAYA, MUJH MEIN RAHI NA HUN;
AAPA PARKA MIT GAYA, JIT DEKHAN TIT TUN.


It is only after reaching such a state of mind that one gets real happiness. The devotee dissolves himself in divine love, ends his identity, his existence as such:


RANJHA RANJHA KARDI NI MAIN AAP VI RANJHA HOYEE;
SADDO NI RANJHA MAINOO, HEER NA AAKHO KOYEE.

It is said that Heer lost herself in love for Ranjha so acutely that she lost her own identity, her own existence and there remained only Ranjha. Similarly, there is a story about Guru Nanak Dev Ji. In Modikhana he was weighing (the corn) and keeping the count. When he reached thirteen (Tehra), he started saying Tera - Tera (Yours i.e. God's) and forgot the count, forgot
himself, was lost in the divine thought. Similarly, there is a story about the love of Gopis (mild-women) with Lord Krishna. They are reported to have said;

UDHO,MAN NA BHAYE DAS BEES;
EK HUTO SO GAYO SHYAM SANG,
KO ARADHE ISH?


It means our mind (the only one we had) has gone with Lord Krishna (and there is no other mind that could now worship God). In other words, as one surrenders to God, one goes on rising (in life). This surrender is essential. For example, when we want to get a cloth dyed, we have to carry it to the dyer and leave it with him. If the cloth is lying at home and we expect that it will get automatically dyed, this is just not possible. Similarly, in order to get our mind dyed (in the divine colour), we will have to surrender it to Satguru (The True Master), give up all kinds of ego and pride. Whosoever does this, his mind is dyed in the divine colour.

Suppose a man gets into a stream or a pool. We can understand that he is receiving the coolness. If however, another person who is sitting in the sun outside the water declares that the former is telling a lie because he himself is feeling hot and does not find any coolness, he is also right, for he himself has not come into contact with the water and, therefore, he cannot feel the coolness. Only the man who has entered the water can experience the state of coolness. Similarly, those who march on the path of devotion, they derive happiness by dint of Sewa, Satsang and Simran but those who do not do so, cannot have the experience of the ecstasy (the bliss) that flows from the spirit of surrender. It's only the person in love who is familiar with the bliss it brings.

All our acts of purification are hollow if they are not accompanied by love. A man who loves God, is the highest devotee. It is said also:


POTHI PADH PADH JAG MUA, PANDIT BHAYA NA KOYE, DHAI AAKHAR PREM KE, PADHE SO PANDIT HOYE.


It means that if we have not learnt the two and a half letters of the word Prem (love), if the feeling of love is not awakened in our mind, we are not going to be welcomed in the kingdom of God. No matter if we get up early in the morning, have a bath, apply sandal and we put on the rosary, show all kinds of charity, but at the same time we discard man, we do not possess the feeling of love, there is nothing significant about us. Why so we burn Ravana? Why do we have no respect for him in our minds? After all, he was also a great scholar. If these qualifications, the knowledge of scriptures, were required for a man to become Pandit (wise), then Ravana should also have attained salvation. He should also have been given importance, treated to be great, worshipped like any other saint. But this did not happen. In spite of having the knowledge of scriptures, he suffered from pride. That is why he is not found to deserve admiration, adoration.

This is the reason why spiritual masters declare:

DHAI AKSHAR PREM KE PADHE SO PANDIT HOYE.

Only he is Pandit, the wise man, who has made his mind a dwelling place for love. If we learn the language of love, we have become Pandit, we are enlighted, we are a saint, we are a devotee. If, however, we have not studied love or learnt it, we just cannot become a saint, we cannot be called Pandit, we cannot be called enlightened.

Love is a heart's affair. Love gets related to conversation, discussion, reading, writing and so on, only if the feeling is there in the heart. In the unenlightened world we find that high sounding words are used by the tongue, while the heart is at something else. Baba Gurbachan Singh Ji also said often that we find such people using big words in the welcome of the guests. They would say, "We will have a nice day to-day. We will enjoy." But when the host goes to the other room to tell his wife to prepare some food for the guest, he describes the latter as a curse, because it would mean an expenditure of 10-15 rupees. This is what is happening in the unenlightened world. The tongue utters high sounding words of devotion, expresses lot of goodwill, but the mind is overwhelming with pain, with hatred, instead of love.

We have to bear this in mind and understand thoroughly that if we want to please God, we will have to love its creation, the mankind, irrespective of the fact that they may speak any language, they may belong to any state, they may have any dress, they may come from any country or belong to any part of the world. This is what has always been taught by spiritual masters. To-day if we refer to Lord Jesus Christ, we find that he said, "At the end only those will get salvation, will be found closest to me, who offered me water when I was thirsty, who lifted me when I fell down." The people listening to him were astonished. They said, "We never came near you. We were never in direct contact with you. Moreover, it is just not possible that all human beings who are there in the world may find it feasible to reach you personally. How can each and every person meet you? How can it be possible that whenever you feel thirsty, we all rush to offer water to you? This is just not possible. In that case we will all stand condemned and deserve to be sent to the hell. Since we did not lift you when you fell down, most of us will have to go the hell."

Lord Jesus Christ said, "O Man! All these human beings are my own image. In case you discarded any of them, its direct meaning is that you discarded me. In case you allowed any one of them to die for want of water, it means you tried to kill me of thirst. And if you showed love to them, you showed love to me."

Adoration or dedication with love means only the spirit of submission. Only a person who surrenders himself in terms of body, mind and materials to this God, the Formless, gets merged into the divine name, can be said to have the true spirit of devotion.

It is just like the spirit of love between the child and the mother. The mother is by nature fond of the child. She feeds him, looks after him day and night not because she would like to seek some reward for it or because the child, when he grows up, is likely to open huge bank accounts in her name. She never loves her child because of such desires, such ambitions. Her love is pure, simple and unconditional. She is devoted to the child in such a way that she lives for him, she breathes for him. The same is true of love between a saint and the Almighty. It is all the more glorified, when the love is mutual. In the un-enlightened world, love everywhere is found to be unilateral. There are many instances. Even the love of Chakor (the red- legged partridge) for the moon is unilateral. The Chakor is mad to please the moon. It jumps, it dances. But the moon remains unmoved. Similar is the love of Bhanwra (black bee) with the flower, of moth with the light. The moth hovers over the lamp and gets itself killed. But all this is of no use, nothing gets achieved. Similarly, whatever example of love we find in the unenlightened world, it is that of unilateral love only.

The spiritual love is always mutual and bilateral. It is, therefore, said that where there is a mention of the Formless, there is reference to someone with form also. When this love is unconditional, unstinted and free from self interest, it makes us happy throughout, blissful in all respects. Whatever the modes of worship the unenlightened men may like to adopt, each one in his own way, it may probably fetch some worldly materials. It will not be possible to find true happiness, the lasting bliss.

In love there is no motive, no self interest. A poet says:

GHARZ DIAN BUNIADAN TE JO TIKYA AE OH PYAR NAHIN.

In the world to-day, love is shown only for a motive. Love is shown with some purpose, with some aim or objective. Someone wants to come in power, so he flatters others. Somebody wants to sell an article, get a good price, so he shows as much regard to the customer as possible. Mentally, people may be fed up with each other, may wish for each other's ruin, but outwardly whey show love to each other. This is the behaviour of the world to-day. People here are mislead. Anybody can be taken in. The outward attraction, the show off may mislead anybody, but not in the case where the love is real, from the heart. Those who believe in outward display, in social formalities, they cannot be held in highest esteem in the kingdom of God. One must make people happy, please them, but not with artificiality. The devotion which is the same from outside and inside, is in fact based on love. Not that some selected people may say that so and so is a big devotee, a perfect servant (Sewadar), a humble person. This does never happen in the matter of devotion. The heart should speak, the heart should display the spirit that we are the same from outside and inside. This God, Formless wants the same spirit to prevail outside and inside. Those who are one and the same in regard to their thought, action and speech, they really receive the praise, their name is glorified. The devotion of a devotee is not there to show to the world, because it does not require any certificate or testimonial from the people. Even if a certificate is there, it is not going to pay in divine kingdom. What is going to count has already been seen by the Almighty. God has never been absent from anywhere. God is there everywhere.

God is there on this side of the wall and it is there on the other side of the wall. If there is any lack of uniformity between the love from inside and outside, if there is hatred, shortcomings inside but outwardly one is seen worshipping just for the show of it, such a deceitful action cannot escape the observation of the Almighty. Thus a person who succeeds in practicing his love for the Almighty, who surrenders to the divine will, who realises the presence of God while speaking or doing anything, who realises that God dwells in each and every human being, he enjoys the pleasure of his devotion; his devotion bears fruit.

If a man is carrying a fragrant flower in his hand, it does not give fragrance to the holder only. A person who happens to stand by his side also enjoys it. Similarly, a person who carries the spirit of love in his mind, who talks sweet, soothing to the hearts of others, is not happy himself alone, he pleases everybody who comes near him.

Hatred is an antidote to the feeling of love. As hatred rises in the mind, man moves farther and farther from love. As we go on discarding human beings, we render ourselves away from the kingdom of God. A poet has rightly said :


KYA KAREGA PYAR WO IMAN SE,
KYA KAREGA PYAR WO BHAGWAN SE,
JANM LEKAR GOD MEIN INSAN KE,
KAR NA PAYA PYAR JO INSAN SE.

Since we are born to human beings, we must love the mankind. Once we have loved humanity, we have loved God. Such a feeling of love based on surrender to the will of God is aroused in the hearts of those who receive God-knowledge with blessings of Satguru or the True Master.

Those who are blessed by Satguru would never give up the spirit of love. When a person receives God-knowledge, gets aligned with this Almighty, comes to know God, he realises that his body, his mind, his wealth, everything belongs to God. But an unenlightened person considers himself to be the master, the owner of his worldly assets. Saints have always recognised this Almighty as the real owner. They lead the life based on complete surrender to the will of God. This lesson has come from those spiritual masters who merged themselves with this Almighty, those who won praise for serving others while leading normal life. There are very few saints who possess the spirit of love based on God-knowledge. There are numerous trees in the forest, but all of them are not Sandal trees. The Sandal trees lend their fragrance to the air which carries it further to other objects. Similarly, there are very few saints in the world who spread the message of divine truth, the message of the spirit of humanity, and glorify the name of God.

Love is pure only when it has no selfish motive attached to it. Whenever a true saint has shown devotion to God, he has done it with the spirit of selflessness. In fact it is the spirit of selflessness that is pure love. The man who surrenders himself to God, praises it, shows devotion to it, gets his mind in the same degree influenced by Godly qualities. He sheds the feeling of discrimination. Thus God and the saint tend to become one, a kind of similarity starts developing. A poet says:


TERA PATA MILA TO PHIR APNA PATA KAHAN

In love the sense of discrimination is no more there. That is why, it has been said here that when I came to know about you, I forgot about myself. Then, where was my identity left? Where did I belong to? I became your own image. This is the condition of those who sacrifice themselves for the Supreme Power in terms of body, mind and materials, those who hold back nothing in their mind, those who treat all their assets as really belonging to God, those who do not feel proud if something comes and do not regret if something goes, since they understand that all these assets belong to the Almighty.

The structure of divine adoration can stay on the foundation of God-knowledge only. It is essential for a devotee to assimilate the divine name into his heart. Once God enters one's mind, one's life, only love flows therefrom. And the one who is deprived of this association with God, is deprived of love also. A man came running and jumped into a tank from a bridge suddenly and started crying. People assembled and found that he was hurt badly. He had broken some bones also. The reason was that there was no water in the tank. The man had struck against the ground. Similarly if we do not find the water of divine name, we are bound to be hurt, feel the pain and be humiliated.

The holy bible says : Love thy neighbour. Probably it is taken to mean that you may love only your nearest neighbours. For spiritual masters, however, the entire world is their neighbours. It is such a chain, a continuous order, a series that goes all around and ends at self. It is from this angle that we have to see 'our neighbours'. From this viewpoint who can be described as far off? Who is a stranger? Who is not our own? Guided by this spirit, our love will take every human being into its fold. About perfect love the wise man say:


JYON JAL PYARA MACHHRI, LOBHI PYARA DAM;
MA PYARA JYON BALKA, BHAKT PYARE RAM.


Just as water is everything to the fish, money to the greedy, child to the mother, this God is everything to a devotee. Everybody knows the relationship of a fish with water. If it is separated from water, it starts fluttering, it dies. Similar are the feelings of a devotee. His mind becomes restless like the fish, if he is isolated from God, if he is made to forget, the Almighty. He always endeavours to keep his mind united with God. He would like to remember God all the time.


SUPNE JO BARRAYE KE MUKH SON KAHIYE RAM;
USKE PAG KI PANHI, KABIRA TAN DO CHAM.


Devotees have always remembered this God. They have realised its presence all the time. They have considered it essential, as essential as breathing itself and found the feeling a destroyer of pains.

Devotees are recognised from the feeling of love they posses. Once a king asked a wise man the way to find out devotees of God in his kingdom, the method to call them and see them. The wise man said; "I am able to think of only one way. You may announce that those who are devotees of God, those who worship God, will not be required to pay any tax hereafter." The king did so. The result was that by next morning devotees appeared all over. The king saw this and said to the wise man, "You gave me a good suggestion. I find all are inclined towards devotion to God. This has removed my disappointment of many days." The wise man replied, "No, Sir. This is only one part of the proposal. Now, you announce that you want to extract some oil from the bodies of the devotees of God and use the same in a religious ceremony (Havan)." This announcement was also made. The devotees having the spirit of dedication were called upon. When it was a matter of taxexemption, devotees could be seen all around. Now that there was this new announcement, everybody removed the auspicious mark (Tilak) from the forehead hurriedly. Even the Sandal applied on bodies started disappearing. Everybody started denying that he was a devotee of a God. There was only one exception. Only one devotee came forward and surrendered himself, presented himself for the sacrifice. He did not hide himself. Thus it was found that there was only one devotee of God in the entire kingdom.

Saints! What we mean to say is that a devotee does not retrace his steps, whatever the circumstances. He remains firm and stable both in pleasure and in pain. He does not stumble. He always remains devoted to God, a devotee. It we look at the life of Kabir Ji or Meera, we find that they were also guided by the spirit of devotion to God based on dedication. A devotee feels happy to feed others. He respects others and feels as if the honour is being done to him. In this he sees his own welfare. This kind of thinking, this kind of feeling brings glory to the devotee. This is the sign of a true devotee.

The spiritually enlightened person love even those who hate them. Once a divine master (Guru Amardas ji Maharaj) was sitting. A person suffering from jealousy (Datt) came and hit him in his back with his foot. An ordinary person will think that he must have caught his leg, twisted it and thrown him on the ground. But look at the greatness of the divine master! No doubt he caught him by foot, but he started fondling the same. He said, "There is hardly any flesh on my body. There are bones only. May be you have hurt your delicate foot. You might have felt the pain." If we are followers of such divine masters, we must also have such life, adopt such feelings. We must do good to others. Lord Christ also says that there is nothing special if you love those who love you. Even murderers, thieves and robbers may do this to each other. Two criminals may have mutual love based on mutual interest. What is unusual or special about it? Distinction goes to the saints, the devotees of God, who extend love to and pray for the well being of even those who possess ill will for them, who treat them as their enemies. It is the devotee who receives honour in the kingdom of God-Nirankar.

A devotee of God sacrifices everything saying, "O God the Almighty! This youth, these ornaments, these are all a false glamour of the futile world. If they go, let them go, but let your love, your devotion stay."


GALIYAN CHIKKAR DOOR GHAR
MERA NAAL PYARE NEH,
CHALAN TAN BHIJJE KAMBLEE
RAHAN TAN TUTE NEH.


If I go in the rain, my blanket will get wet. But if I care for the blanket and stay back, it will violate my love. Man has to think for himself. He himself has to decide whether he is to save the blanket from drenching or care decision and he who fulfils love, wins praise, receives all kinds of delight. Even history tells us that those who loved God, the devotees of God, did never care for the world:

IZZAT HUKUMAT LOK LAJJA PREMI SAB KUJH TAJDE,
UNHAN PREMI KI AKHWANA JO IZZAT WAL BHAJDE.


Those who run after false prestige and disintegrate themselves from this God, those who prefer to care for the world, can never become true (divine) lovers or devotees.

Lord Christ has said, "Love is God," because only love is the gateway to devotion and the eternal bliss. Those who have hatred in mind, who have ego, can never find this gateway.

What is the feeling of adoration? It is the feeling of owning the beloved God, filling the mind with its love and distributing the same not only to the members of one's family but taking it to the entire world.

In fact all spiritual masters have always recognised this Formless God to be the fountin-head of love. All other sources have been treated as meaningless. Man may consider worldly materials as signs of prosperity from the worldly point of view, but they are all treated as meaningless, as thorns, without the divine name, without God:

KABIR MAN NIRMAL BHAYA JAISE HANHA NEER,
PACHHE PACHHE HAR PHIRE KAHT KABIR KABIR.


The mind of a person who thinks of God becomes clean, pure. He attracts the attention of God. God gets praise showered on such devotees. God looks after them.

Love is not an ordinary bargain. Pure love that blossoms from pure feelings, pure heart, cannot be found from any other source. Whenever we receive love, it is found only by shedding ego:

PREM NA KHETI UPJE, PREM NA HAAT BIKAYE,
RAJA PARJA JEH RUCHAI, SEES DEY LE JAYE.

This love does not grow in fields. Neither it can be bought with wealth. It can also not be acquired by obliging someone. By these means, love does not enter the heart. It can be found only by this means:

PREM PYALA JO PIYE SHEESH DAKSHINA DE,
LOBHI SHEESH NA DE SAKE NAAM PREM KA LE.


Pure love stays in the heart of a person who gives away his head (Sheesh), gives up his pride, his ego, and surrenders all his wisdom. It is he who loves. It is he who surrenders everything, sacrifices self. The man who is greedy, narrow-minded and self-centred, can never part with anything. And so long as he does not surrender himself, his love will also be artificial, outward.

Just as a lover gives the top position in his mind to the beloved, the devotees of God also give the highest place to God. If man gives the lowest place to the one who deserves the highest, where can love there be? We arrange things systematically. We do not place the table on the plate and then some other things on it. It is not the horse that puts the saddle on us and rides. Wherever we find such adverse system or arrangement, there will be problems, trouble. Man will continue to stay where he is. That is why man is advised to give the highest place to this God, the divine name. If you give importance to insignificant, perishable things and place God behind everything else, where can you find the pleasure, where can you find peace? Lust, anger, greed etc, vitiate love, spoil devotion.

The one who loves God is emancipated from the cycle of birth and death. He rises above ambitions. When the mind is engrossed in desires, man cannot show devotion to God. There can be no devotion to God, if his mind suffers from casteism and there are walls of high and low. He is far from the very sense of devotion, because devotion to God can be perfect only when man behaves like man, when he realises that he himself is not superior and none else is inferior, when he appreciates that his own caste is not high and no other caste is low. In fact what kind of castes have we created? If we had really accepted caste system, Lord Rama should also have endorsed the contemporary ritualism. He should have accepted their attitude towards Bhilani ( Shabri), who had been condemned and laughed at by them. But this did not happen. He gave honour to the same Bhilani. He showed respect to her. Who can display such a sense of devotion? Who can rise above the consideration of caste and creed and live like a human being, realise that his own body is not composed of 10-20 elements and others do not possess less and then understand that all human bodies are made of five elements alike? When there is only one Supreme Power that commands and controls even the slightest movement, where can man be high or low? Those who love God do not treat someone as high or low on account of the family he is born to.

Only the man who is humble at heart belongs to a high family. He is great, he deserves reverence. Only such a person has been accepted as Pandit (learned) who has understood two and a half letters of the word Prem (Love). In reality only he can be considered to have love for Vedas and Shastras, who gives place to the feeling of love in his heart. O Man! If you do not have the feeling of mercy, the feeling of love, your devotion to God is not real, it is just a show of it. If you want to be known as a real devotee, enter the category of saints, you must possess the feeling of love, the sense of equality, the attitude of liberal mindedness. How can this be possible? This can be achieved only when you meet saints, you love saints.

This state arrives when you find the company of saints. Kabir Ji has gone to the extent of saying that with the company of saints, he became God (Ram), he attained the same attributes as God. Spiritual masters speak of a devotee having the same qualities as of God. When does this happen? It is possible when one finds the company of saints. The bushes that grow near Sandal, also get the same fragrance. Paras (touch-stone) comes into contact with iron and converts it into gold. Similarly, a person who seeks the company of saints, becomes a saint, becomes a devotee of God.

Those who are devotees, they never worship God with the hope that when they put in their body, mind and wealth, God will bless them with all kinds of materials. Saints have never remembered this God Nirankar with such a feeling in mind. They show their devotion to this God with the spirit of selflessness:

GURSIKH NOON NAHIN ICHHA PHAL DI,
KARM SADA NISHKKAM KARE.

A disciple of the True Master does not have the desire for the fruit or reward at all. He goes on performing his duties without any such ambition. If action is done keeping the reward in view and the eyes are all the time on the fruit, the real concentration is transferred from devotion to the fruit. A mother looks after the child. She provides all comforts to the child at the cost of her own. Sometimes she has to keep awake throughout the night. She has to face many difficulties. Her love is, however, absolutely unconditional. This is the true kind of love that devotees have for God.

Love is always based on faith. A devotee will never give up faith in this Almighty. And the love established once, is fulfilled till the last breath:

RAHMAN DHAGA PREM KA, MAT TORO CHATKAYE;
TUTE SE PHIR NA JURE, JURE GANTH PAR JAYE.

The thread that breaks is reconnected by a knot. But this knot becomes quite noticeable to the eye and looks odd. It disturbs the smoothness of the thread. Similar is the example of a torn garment. The cloths we wear are sometimes torn. When we get them repaired or stitched, the patch looks odd and it disturbs the eye. What we mean to say is that the love of devotees is pure and constant. It does not have a knot.